11 h. ago Predators review – grimly compelling look at reality TV revenge hunt for child abusers

David Osit’s documentary takes a disturbing look at the televised shaming served up by the hit show To Catch a PredatorIt’s too soon to know for sure, but this may end up being ranked as one of the best nonfiction films of the year. At least let’s hope lots of people get to see this, even if it’s a mistake because they meant to buy a ticket for Predator: Badlands. Instead of an alien hunter with gnarly teeth, this offers a profoundly troubling meditation on our collective thirst for revenge – or at least the kind of bizarre performance art version of revenge as served up by reality TV show To Catch a Predator, a US series that ran from 2004 to 2007 and which featured weekly footage of paedophiles and would-be paedophiles being duped, shamed and arrested.Predators’ director David Osit, at first just an offscreen voice but eventually a fully seen (in every sense) presence, explains that he used to watch To Catch a Predator avidly as a young man. Every episode was roughly the same: a m...

Events

62 h. ago ‘We never had much fun – we were angry’: Eve Libertine on life with anarcho

Accused of obscenity and sued by police and Tory MPs, Libertine outraged the establishment as part of Crass. Now she’s back – and she hasn’t mellowed with age‘Things haven’t changed,” sighs Eve Libertine as she contemplates her new album. “All those songs are as relevant as they ever were.” The album in question, Live at the Horse Hospital, shows no sign that one of punk’s most anti-establishment figures is mellowing with age. Recorded at one blistering London live show in April 2024, Libertine collaborated with Chilean guitarist Eva Leblanc, reimagining tracks from Libertine’s back catalogue including ones from her time singing with 1970s anarcho-punk pioneers Crass. Produced by Crass founder Penny Rimbaud, it treads a path between performance art, experimental music and earth ritual; with her strident operatic tones, Libertine sounds like a soothsayer foretelling an apocalypse. It’s not an easy listen, but that was never the case with Crass, either.“We never had much fun, to be ho...

Politics

4 d. ago Mother of transgender teen accuses Queensland government of privacy breach that could have ‘outed’ her child

Revelation comes as LNP accused of ‘intimidation’ after demanding sensitive medical details from parents of transgender childrenGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe Queensland government released private information about the mother of a transgender teenager – information she says potentially “outed” her child – to a stranger.The revelation came as the state government was accused of “intimidation” and “an invasion of privacy” after demanding confidential medical information from parents of transgender children who are considering a further legal challenge to its controversial ban on puberty blockers. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘I try to make them feel as ignorant as possible’: German museum’s ‘grumpy guide’ is surprise hit

Performance artist’s aggressive art historian shouts at visitors and insults curators – and his tours are sold outOn a recent autumn evening in Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast museum, the guide Joseph Langelinck paused next to a Renaissance sculpture of a man with a wooden club and challenged his flock of 18 visitors to name the mythical hero depicted.“Hercules?” a woman in the front row proposed in a soft voice. “If you know the answer, why can’t you tell us in a way that those at the back can hear you, too?” Langelinck admonished the visitor, before challenging her to name the 12 labours in chronological order. A non-answer elicited an eye roll and a tut. “Oh god, I feel like I’m back at school,” sighed the woman, 62-year-old Corinna Schröder. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Rush(es) by Alexandra Bachzetsis review: this performance art revels in the strange and sensual

Touching on subjects like desire, the commodification of the body and machines, Bachzetsis constructs a fascinating tension between performer and audience

Politics

4 w. ago I went to Marina Abramović’s erotic, explicit new art show – and there was an awful lot to take in | Adrian Chiles

The ‘grandmother of performance art’ and I both have Slavic roots. But I didn’t recognise any of her 14th-century Dalmatian fertility rites – and neither did my mumI’ve just texted my mum to ask why, on the morning of my wedding, she didn’t advise me to drill a hole in a wooden bridge and put my penis in it. No reply from her as yet.This is the morning after I was lucky enough to be at the world premiere of Marina Abramović’s Balkan Erotic Epic at Aviva Studios in Manchester. It is said of Ms Abramović, formidable as ever at 78, that she is the “grandmother of performance art”. Addressing us beforehand, visibly nervous, she spoke of this work as perhaps her most ambitious, her magnum opus. In the programme she writes: “This gives me the chance to go back to my Slavic roots and culture, look back to ancient rituals and deal with sexuality, in relation to the universe and the unanswered questions of our existence.” Having Slavic roots myself, I wasn’t going to miss this one. And fully...

Politics

4 w. ago Bog Witch at Soho Theatre Walthamstow review: an uneven odyssey into the bucolic

Bryony Kimmings’ new show mines the interface where standup, theatrical life-writing and performance art meet

Politics